Prince Ivan (39 page)

“Not by the hand of man,” said Ivan quietly, and released the pommel. Koshchey looked at him, then at the sword, then at nowhere as the eyes rolled back in his head. Blood bubbled from his mouth and down his beard, and he fell backwards to the ground.

Ivan watched the body for a long time, eyes narrow and wary; then recovered his own sabre before helping Mar’ya Morevna up to Sivka’s high saddle. This place stank of death, and he was eager to leave it and go home. Koshchey he would leave as a gift to the scavengers who had been cheated of their rightful food for many centuries; there was neither a spade to dig his grave, nor any inclination to so much trouble. “You cried out,” he said. “What was wrong?”

“I was frightened.”

Ivan raised his eyebrows, for that word wasn’t one often heard from his wife. “You? Frightened?”

“Of your great, original plan. Have you any idea of how dangerous that was?”

“No more dangerous than anything else. And it worked.”

“Because no one ever thought of that before? I’m sorry, Vanya. I thought of it years ago, but none of my books would confirm that it would work and, and,” she lowered her gaze and said in a small voice, “I was too afraid of him to take the chance.”

Ivan smiled. “No more of that,” he said, and turned towards Koshchey’s horse. “And no more beatings for you, I promise.” Then he heard the tiny noise behind him, where no such noise should be, and swung around with one hand dropping to the hilt of a sabre he knew was useless.

Koshchey the Undying sat up, fitting his arm back into its socket as a man might put on a glove.

“You always hear, Prince Ivan,” he said in a voice as cold as stone, edged with such eagerness as a headsman’s axe might display when laid ready across the block, “but you never listen. What matter that you kept my hand around my sword: it was you who thrust it through my body and not I. You used sword and hand as your weapon, and all of it was yours as surely as if you had used that foolish sabre. With as much effect.” He stood up, lifting the cleaver, and pointed it at Ivan. “I grow weary of this. Now you die.”

There was a quick thud of hoofs and Ivan felt a sudden wrench of pressure that encompassed his fur collar and a good handful of his hair; then Mar’ya Morevna succeeded in dragging him far enough from the ground that he could heave himself up behind her into Sivka’s saddle. They were already pounding along the gully when they heard Koshchey’s first screech of frustration and knew he would soon be after them again.

“What now?” There was despair in Mar’ya Morevna’s voice, something that Ivan had never heard before, and it frightened him as much as the sight of Koshchey recovering from what Ivan had been sure was a killing blow.

He shook his head, unable to think of anything except that dreadful scrawny shape putting itself back together after being butchered ten times over. “It should have killed him,” he said. “I was sure it would have killed him. I was so sure.”

Then he curled up the reins until they hung from his free hand like a twin-tailed quirt, and patted Sivka’s neck in apology for what the next few minutes might force him to do. “Now,” he said firmly, trying not to betray how his voice wanted to tremble at the thought of his death following him again, “we ride fast. Can we reach your kremlin ahead of Koshchey?”

Mar’ya Morevna shrugged helplessly. Ivan didn’t repeat the question; he didn’t want to ask Sivka anything while steeling himself to beat such a willing and great-hearted horse. It would only have compounded the cruelty and made him no better than Koshchey.

Then a voice in his ear said, “Come here, little Prince.”

Mar’ya Morevna screamed a great oath and lashed out with the dagger in her hand, but icy fingers had already wrenched Ivan from Sivka’s back. He smashed into the yielding foliage of a small bush and rebounded to the ground, aware as he felt the impact all the way from head to heels that at least his neck hadn’t been broken.

Yet.

He was being saved for something much more interesting.

Koshchey the Undying reined his horse to a sweating, eye-rolling standstill just as Ivan staggered to his feet with the whole wide white world spinning slowly around his head. He glanced at Ivan and then dismounted, plucking Mar’ya Morevna’s dagger from where it was embedded in his neck but not troubling to draw his sword. “You still refuse to hear what I tell you, Prince Ivan. I said come
here
!”

He reached out, seized Ivan with fingers so long that they went right around his head as a man might hold an apple, then flung him across the clearing. “No, not
there
. I want you to come
here
!” And he did it again.

And again.

And again.

The only witnesses were the fairest Princess in all the Russias, and two black horses that might have been stable-brothers, except that one was glossy and well treated, the other grievously torn by lash and whip. There were no other witnesses. Even crows kept away from Koshchey
Bessmertny
until he was done.

“Draw your sword, pretty Prince Ivan.” Koshchey the Undying licked blood from his fingers and grinned. “Cut off my head. Kill me. If you dare. If you can.”

Ivan pushed himself up on his fists and stared as best he could at his tormentor. There was blood trickling from his mouth, from his nose and from his ears, and one of his eyes was so bruised that he could barely see past the swelling.

“I can’t,” he managed to say, and Koshchey laughed harshly. Then the laugh cut off as Ivan twisted his bruised lips into the horrible mockery of a smile. “Because I can’t quite reach you. Come closer.”

“I am close enough,” said Koshchey. “This no longer entertains me.” He drew his monstrous sword and stalked forward to level its point at Ivan’s mouth. “This time there will be no return from death, Prince Ivan,” he said. “Kiss the wide white world goodbye.” Ivan spat blood on the sword and on Koshchey’s feet. “A fine, dramatic gesture,” said the necromancer. “A pity no one will talk about it afterwards.”

His sword swung up, poised for the stroke, and then a voice that was neither Ivan’s nor Mar’ya Morevna’s said, “My brother was right, Koshchey the Undying. I owe you nothing. Except this.”

The two black horses reared up on either side of him, not men, not wielding weapons, but the single hoof that each lashed out struck against the other like a hammer on an anvil, and Koshchey’s head was in between.

It exploded like a melon, so that just his beard remained.

The Undying necromancer stood upright for several seconds while his body gaped and spurted with all the many years of wounds that had never done him harm until now; and then, without fuss or stink, he fell apart.

Tsarevich Ivan Aleksandrovich climbed slowly to his feet and looked down at the pieces, and for several seconds he couldn’t believe the evidence of the only eye that was still working. It was too sudden, too neat and clean. Such a thing couldn’t be final. His fingers gripped the silvered hilt of his own sabre as he watched and waited for the first twitch of renewed movement, and those fingers shook before they closed. Then Mar’ya Morevna put her hand on his and gently returned the half-drawn blade to its scabbard.

“It’s all over, Vanyushka,” she said, beginning to dab gently at the blood streaking his face. “There’s nothing left to do except go home.”

Ivan looked at her, and nodded. “Home would be good,” he said in a small voice. “But not just yet. There’s something left. One final thing to do.” Mar’ya Morevna was puzzled for a moment, until he hobbled off and began to hunt for sticks, for twigs, for anything that would catch fire, and then she followed suit.

They burned the pieces of Koshchey the Undying on a great brushwood pyre, and sat at a distance to watch them burn, piling more fuel on the flames whenever they began to fade until when the fire went out at last for simple lack of anything else to burn, no trace remained except perhaps a finer ash among the rest. As evening drew on a breeze began to whisper through the grass and among the little bushes, but as the sun set in a haze of rose and gold, the breeze became a shrieking gale.

When it died away again the ashes were gone.

Prince Ivan turned to Mar’ya Morevna and took her by the hands. Lightly, for it hurt to do even this, he kissed her on the forehead and the eyelids, on each cheek and finally, lovingly, he kissed her mouth. “I brought them back,” he said, “and I give them back. Now it’s over. Let’s go home.”

Then Ivan swore softly under his breath, and his sabre whispered from its scabbard. Mar’ya Morevna looked at him in shock, then back over her shoulder to where Koshchey’s body had been burnt. Nothing moved there except a drift of smoke and the faintest swirl of ash along the ground. But now she too could hear what had reached her husband’s ears in the evening stillness.

It was the rhythmic tread of an army on the march.

Ivan scrambled up the slope that edged the clearing with sword in hand, though what he could do in his present state neither of them knew. He stood on the crest of the little bank for several minutes, silhouetted by what remained of the sunset, staring out across the wide white world at whatever host was marching by.

And then he yelled, “What kept you all? You’re late!”

*

Guarded and escorted by the entire army of the Tsardom of Khorlov, Mar’ya Morevna rode on Koshchey’s horse, and Ivan on his own. They kept both animals reined back to a sensible speed so that the marching soldiers wouldn’t be left behind, and also so they could enjoy their singing.

“There are few things more cheerful, highness,” confided Captain Akimov, “than an army which doesn’t need to fight a battle after all.”

They reached Mar’ya Morevna’s kremlin after an easy few days march, and to Ivan’s delight, Burka was there, waiting for them in the stable where the servants had put him, sadly thin and somewhat scraped by bear’s claws, but glad to see them both as any dumb beast could be. How he had crossed the river of fire from Baba Yaga’s country, no one knew, and no one cared to ask.

But Tsarevich Ivan believed then and always afterwards that it had happened the same way Burka had escaped the bear: by swift legs, and by stoutness of heart, and by wanting to come home to those who loved him.

Once all was set in order and Mar’ya Morevna’s wide domains were running smoothly they rode out again, this time to visit Ivan’s relatives, his sisters and their husbands, until at last they at last came home to his dear parents, Tsar Aleksandr and Tsaritsa Ludmyla of Khorlov. In all the places they went they were received with gladness, until at last, with all the visits over and all the feasting done, they rode back to Mar’ya Morevna’s kremlin and there they prospered, keeping house as man and wife.

They kept no more than wine in the cell that had once held Koshchey the Undying, and if they had visitors, whether Yekaterina and the Falcon, or Yelizaveta and the Eagle, or Yelena and the Raven, they drank as much of the wine as made them merry.

And every now and then, they drank just a little more.

ПОСЛЕСЛОВИЕ

(
Epilogue
)

Go out in summer and watch the dry sand on the shore.

Go out in autumn and watch the fallen leaves.

Go out in winter and watch the drifting snow.

See how they blow and swirl, apart and then together.

It might be nothing but the wind.

Or it might be Koshchey the Undying, trying to become whole again.

But take comfort, even when the sun sets and the shadows reach with long, cold fingers out of the gathering night. He hasn’t succeeded.

Yet…

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Prince Ivan
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